


The Timekeeper

by orphan_account



Category: Kuroko no Basuke | Kuroko's Basketball
Genre: Childhood Friends, High School AU, M/M, Timekeeper Kuroko
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-09
Updated: 2016-03-09
Packaged: 2018-05-25 15:15:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,618
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6200047
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Akashi schedules his life down to the second, and his childhood friend, Kuroko, only fits in the tiny spaces between meetings. At least, until a distant memory and a tragic reminder shows Akashi the true value of time.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Timekeeper

**Author's Note:**

  * For [AgapantoBlu](https://archiveofourown.org/users/AgapantoBlu/gifts).



A soft knock registered in Akashi’s mind, but he did not bother looking up from his computer. He reread a key point from the two open textbooks on his desk and then typed another sentence into his document before he finally voiced his acknowledgement.

The door opened, and a small figure entered. Akashi did not bother looking up from his essay, so the visitor set a box down on his dresser and then took a seat on the edge of his bed.

Akashi finished a paragraph before he finally turned around and acknowledged his guest.

“Kuroko.”

“Hello, Akashi-kun.”

“I believe I told you that I did not have any spare time today,” Akashi reminded him.

Kuroko nodded, his feet lightly swaying over the edge of the bed. “I will leave soon. I brought you some food. I know you won’t make something yourself, and—”

He bit his lip before he could finished the sentence, but Akashi heard the rest anyway. And now no one is here to make sure you don’t starve yourself while you work.

Sometimes Akashi wished he and Kuroko had not been friends since the tender age of five. He liked how he could go to school, and no one stared at him with pity in their eyes. They knew nothing of the private parts of his life, and he enjoyed the reprieve. Kuroko did not look at him with pity either, but as the packed lunch on his dresser illustrated, he did coddle.

“There was no need to trouble yourself,” Akashi dismissed. After a second of hesitation, he added quietly, “But thank you.”

Kuroko nodded once more before standing. “I know you’re busy. Please do not work too hard, Akashi-kun.”

The red-haired boy had already turned back to his computer, and Kuroko weakly waved to a turned back before slipping out of the room.

…

_The noise is deafening._

_Ticks and hitches, clogs shuffling against each other, the metallic twang of a pendulum. The sounds clash together with no sense of order._

_Akashi walks up the spiraling staircase until he stands before a simple wooden door, and the noise becomes even more irritating. When he actually enters the room at the top of the tower, it’s overwhelming._

_Clocks of all kinds decorate the walls with no more than an inch of blank space anywhere. Wooden and metal, simple and elegant. One almost takes up half a wall by itself, and some are no bigger than his thumbprint, and the rest vary somewhere between. Not a single clock displays the same time._

_Akashi’s eyes scan the room, but he sees no sign of life among the machinery._

_“Hello.”_

_Blue eyes suddenly peer at Akashi from directly in front of him, and Akashi glares at him. He knows the boy was not there a moment ago, yet he appears now. Likely to mock him, and Akashi is not in the mood._

_“Are you the timekeeper?”_

_The boy, blue hair hanging messily in his face, glances at the clocks on either side of him as if making sure for himself. “Yes,” he finally replies._

_“I require your services,” Akashi says. He struggles not to hiss the words, for though he wants to demand the blue-eyed boy, he knows he needs to remain in his good graces to achieve what he needs._

_The timekeeper raises one eyebrow. “Is that so?”_

_“Yes,” Akashi manages through gritted teeth._

_“What do you need?” the timekeeper inquires._

_Akashi’s gaze wanders to the swinging pendulum of a grandfather clock, and he idly wonders why not a single one shares the same time. The elders claim they owe the timekeeper for the peace in the land, but the tiny pale boy in gray trousers and a white shirt hardly seems an exceptional being._

_As long as he does what he wants, Akashi does not particularly care._

_“I need more time.”_

…

The squeak of shoes and a rush of wind were Akashi’s only warnings before he caught the basketball an inch from his face. He lowered the ball to glare at where Kuroko still stood in his passing stance across the court.

“Practice is over, Kuroko. You know where the balls go,” Akashi ordered.

Kuroko trotted to him and took the ball from his hands. “Do you want to practice a little more with me? We can play one on one,” he offered.

Akashi started shaking his head before Kuroko even finished talking. “I have a meeting with my shogi mentor in half an hour. You know I have a tournament soon.”

“Right,” Kuroko said, idly tossing the ball between his hands. Though he was not a particularly good player, he practiced more than anyone, and his movements with the blow flowed as naturally as breathing. However, his blue eyes dulled when Akashi started moving toward the coach’s office.

Along with student council president and current valedictorian, Akashi was the basketball team captain as well. His responsibilities never ended.

Kuroko dribbled the ball across the court on his way to the storage room.

…

_“How can this system possibly be efficient?”_

_Even as Akashi speaks, the timekeeper glides from one clock to the next, adding seconds here and taking them there. Moving the hands in a pattern Akashi doesn’t quite follow._

_“Every city in the world operates on its own timetable. This room keeps track of all of them,” the timekeeper explains, his voice distant and soft. Akashi thought him spacey before, but perhaps he’s always this way because part of his mind remains with the clocks. “You are right though. The orbits of the sun and earth are unstable, and sometimes the clocks need adjusted to remain correct.”_

_“None of these are correct,” Akashi huffs._

_This is the modern world, the Industrial Revolution as some call it. How can their civilization rely on a frail boy in a room of clocks to keep every day life running smoothly?_

_“Someone should standardize the system. Everyone should run on the same clock,” Akashi decides._

_The timekeeper freezes halfway to the grandfather clock. When he turns around to face Akashi, he looks so sad and weary that Akashi wonders if he is older than he seems._

_“If we control time, then time will begin to control us,” he warns._

_Akashi raises one eyebrow. “Excuse me?”_

_The timekeeper lifts his hands to gesture to the room. “This seems like chaos to you, and it is in a way. But it’s chaos chosen by the people. If you force them on a time system that doesn’t belong to them, then time wins.”_

_“Time wins?” Akashi repeats. “Are you in a battle with it?”_

_Blue eyes drift to the floor, and that seems answer enough._

…

Akashi arrived at exactly seven, and Kuroko left his favorite seat at a corner table to greet him. Around them, people chatted in plush chairs or worked at the their computers, and the blenders and steamers competed with the radio to provide background noise.

“Hello, Akashi-kun.”

“Hello, Kuroko. Shall we?”

They waited in line, and Kuroko quietly told a story about training the new library assistant. Apparently the school would be ordering a new bookshelf after the new kid somehow broke one in half.

“He works hard though. I think he’ll be a good assistant,” Kuroko concluded.

“You do see the best in people,” Akashi mused.

Once they reached the counter, Kuroko ordered a vanilla late and Akashi a green tea. The red-haired boy insisted on paying though the other argued as he did every other time. As usual, they took their drinks to the corner table.

“I should pay sometimes,” Kuroko persisted.

“You do enough,” Akashi dismissed. “I can pay for your drinks at least.”

Kuroko’s cheeks flushed a light pink, and he looked out the window as he took a sip. Akashi drank from his own tea, but he watched his friend. No matter how busy his schedule became, he made a point of meeting Kuroko at least once a week. Though usually, Kuroko found other ways to see him even then. Bringing him meals, walking him to meetings, visiting him during office hours.

As Akashi thought about it, the blush on Kuroko’s cheeks became all the more interesting.

“You said you had something to tell me about the student council meeting,” Kuroko hinted.

Akashi’s eyes lingered a moment longer before he began telling of the disaster with Hayama and the stray cat and the important meeting involving the year’s budget.

They talked quietly, both their voices low, and they subconsciously leaned toward each other over the table, hands cupped around their drinks. As the sun set and cast dim pastel light outside, Akashi felt himself relaxing more and more in the presence of his childhood friend.

Which only made his heart hurt more when he felt a buzz in his pocket.

He set alarms to keep himself on his schedule, and he could only see Kuroko for an hour today. He had another appointment with his shogi mentor that he could not miss.

When Akashi took his phone from his pocket, Kuroko’s face fell. He knew of Akashi’s system as well.

However, according to his phone’s clock, he still had twelve minutes with Kuroko. No, it was a text message that alerted him, and Akashi’s heart beat faster as he read the preview and then opened the message completely. He suddenly felt cold.

“The hospital,” he said, unable to clarify more.

Kuroko’s eyes widened, and he slid out of his seat and then took the keys from Akashi’s pocket. “Let’s go. I’ll drive,” he said.

…

_“You asked for time. Now I give it.”_

_The pocket watch feels heavy in Akashi’s hand despite its small size. Vines are engraved around the edge in silver, and he oddly wants to cry as he stares at it. Time. So meaningless until it becomes the most precious thing in the world._

_“Put the chain around her neck. Then the hours are hers,” the timekeeper instructs._

_Akashi looks at him sharply. “I never said the time wasn’t for me,” he accuses._

_For the first time the timekeeper’s lips twitch into something close to a small smile. “You did not have to,” he answers softly._

_Akashi tries not to shift under the wizened gaze of those blue eyes as he reaches into a pocket and takes out a folding of paper._

_“I know you said payment is not needed,” he says, offering the paper. The timekeeper takes and unfolds it to reveal a map with different colored lines drawn across the countries and oceans. “But I wanted to give you something. You should not have to work a job without any sort of break. This will help.”_

_“A standardized time system,” the timekeeper realizes, staring at the colors that divide the map into regions._

_“I call them time zones,” Akashi explains. “The pattern of the sun prevents the entire world from operating on one time, but the zones will allow a finite number of times for you to manage.”_

_Akashi does not know what he expects. Gratitude perhaps? The endless clocks around them still tick and chug in a reminder of the timekeeper’s endless duty, so surely he could see the benefit in this system._

_Instead, the pale boy only looks sad again, and he carefully folds the map. “You will change the world, Akashi Seijuro,” he says quietly before returning the folded paper._

_Akashi takes the map, almost wrinkling the paper in his strong grip. “What do you mean?” he accuses._

_“I told you once before,” he says. “If you control time, then time will begin to control you.”_

_Clenching his hands into fists, Akashi narrows his eyes. “Logically, that makes no sense. I am trying to help you.”_

_The timekeeper’s expression softens, and he almost smiles again. “I know. You do have a good heart. That is proof enough.” He gestures to the pocket watch in Akashi’s other hand. “You should go home and give that to your mother.”_

_Sometimes uncomfortable still creeps just beneath Akashi’s skin, but he still walks to the door, the ticking left behind him. When he grabs the doorknob, he says, “What’s your name?”_

_He almost expects the timekeeper to ignore him, but he catches the whispered words a second before he leaves the tower._

_“Kuroko Tetsuya.”_

…

Everyone wore black.

The colors of the flowers almost felt wrong in the sea of monochrome, and if Akashi stared too long, the roses and orchids blended into meaningless shapes as well.

A river of people shuffled by him to offer condolences. Beside him, his father remained the perfect image of a successful, haunted businessman, accepting handshakes and grief as easily as transactions.

When a stranger began speaking of the wonders of Shiori Akashi’s life, a twinge of pain echoed through the numbness inside him, and Akashi’s neutral facade almost slipped. He probably would have slipped long ago, but there was someone else beside him.

Pale fingers that had entwined with his from the moment at the hospital, and they had not let go since.

…

Akashi grew sick of cliches.

Life continued as the old saying went. Those words probably originated at the birth of time, and they tasted bitter even in Akashi’s own thoughts.

What hurt the most, he discovered, was how he had already grown used to the empty house. His mother had spent so much time in the hospital at the end.

Kuroko brought at least one meal every day now. They usually ate together in Akashi’s room and then did homework. When they finished, Kuroko read a book while Akashi worked on student council plans or basketball strategies or shogi practice. Though they often spent their time in silence, Akashi was never alone.

He took exactly a week to mourn. He did not attend meetings or practices. He and Kuroko curled on his bed and watched movies on his laptop. They drank coffee and tea.

When the week ended, however, Akashi went back to business. Another cliched phrase. How disappointing.

Kuroko still brought him meals and met him after meetings, but he started to see those crystalline blue eyes less and less. Life really had gone back to normal, he supposed.

Except, Akashi realized as he stared at the grandfather clock in the parlor, perhaps not.

…

_If you control time, time will begin to control you._

…

Akashi gently laid the flowers next the headstone, pale fingers still entwined with his.

“I just wish she’d had more time.”

“I know, Akashi-kun.”

…

Akashi arrived at exactly seven, and Kuroko left his favorite seat at a corner table to greet him. The usual people went through their normal routines around them, and Kuroko and Akashi ordered their normal drinks before returning to their usual table.

Kuroko told a story of how the new library assistant somehow managed to set their card cataloging system on fire.

“We’ve been needing to switch to an online system anyway,” Kuroko concluded.

“Your optimism is astounding,” Akashi deadpanned.

They talked quietly, drawing closer, their fingers intertwining across the table. They barely noticed when their faces hovered only an inch apart as they talked far past the sunset. The baristas began to clean the machines. Stars twinkled outside.

Kuroko startled as he realized the darkness of the sky. “I thought you had a meeting with your shogi mentor,” he said.

Akashi smiled softly. “I cancelled,” he dismissed as if he waved away his appointments all the time. “I’d rather spend my time with you.”

“Your schedule—”

“—does not control me,” Akashi finished. He rubbed the back of Kuroko’s hand with his thumb. “Would you like to come over for breakfast tomorrow?”

This time, Kuroko smiled, a sparkle in his blue eyes. “I have all the time in the world for you.”

**Author's Note:**

> Fun Fact: The use of tea and coffee to wake up in the morning became popular after the spread of cheap watches and a standardized time system. For the first time humans were abiding by a time system that wasn’t the sun or their biological clock.


End file.
